Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

HER — PRESENT DAY

The car ride to the cabin is mostly quiet. I turn my music on shuffle, but even when my favorite songs come on, I can’t bring myself to sing along. Everything feels scrambled, as if the puzzle we’ve just finally finished working on, meticulously putting together piece by piece, has been smashed by a pair of fists in a split second. As if the beautiful picture I had for our life now lies with corners here and edges there.

This trip was supposed to be special. Beautiful. Romantic. Instead, it’s forever tainted. I don’t know that there is any way to recover from this, but what does that mean for the child growing in my stomach right now? Will this family be broken before she’s brought into it? Will she never get to see the beautiful puzzle I crafted for her?

I meant what I said earlier—I understand this isn’t Calvin’s fault. Or, rather, there’s no one to blame. I understand that he hasn’t done anything wrong, but it hurts all the same. I feel as if something priceless has been stolen from me, and it’s impossible it will ever be returned.

Is it selfish to wish the daughter had never come forward? That we’d been allowed to live in blissful ignorance for the rest of our lives? Foolish, perhaps, but preferable.

What is she hoping for anyway? She’s grown. Twenty-five or so, from what Cal has said. Is she actually looking for a father figure? Why? We have no money, no resources to share. We’re strangers to her. We could be awful people.

At the same time, some smaller part of me wants to see things from her point of view. As someone who grew up without a father, I would’ve given anything to know him, even if I were to only be given the chance as an adult. It’s not her fault she didn’t get this opportunity until now. The rational part of my brain knows that we never stop wanting our parents, needing to understand where and whom we come from. But I’m not feeling so rational right now. I’m just feeling hurt and alone.

I fight against the tears stinging my eyes, feeling angry and exhausted and devastated and selfish all at once. I hate what this revelation has done to my stability, both in my life and in my head. I feel as if I’m standing on steadily cracking ground, as if everything I knew this morning when I woke up has been torn away from me, crumbled as easily as a piece of toast.

I don’t want to be this woman. You always think you’d be better. Stronger. That you’d react better than the woman you’re watching go through it. That you’d say he should have a relationship with his surprise daughter, that he absolutely should do whatever he feels is right, and you’ll be here no matter what. The rock. The stable ground.

But believing it and doing it are two different things, and right now I’m incapable of maintaining a shred of dignity. I only want to curl up and cry, to let my mother console me as she so often did when I was a child.

That’s one of the most painful parts of all of this. Doing the pregnancy without her has been hard enough, and that’s not to mention the upcoming wedding and the birth of her grandchild. Now I long for another conversation. At least one that’s not one-sided.

I can talk and talk as much as I like, but it’s been nearly a year since my mother recognized me. Most days she thinks I’m her sister, Wendy, who passed away before her sixteenth birthday. Some days she thinks I’m a nurse in her care home.

It doesn’t get easier. Some small part of me always hopes she’ll recover—that she’ll defy the odds and come back from this. That one day I’ll walk into her room at the nursing home, and she’ll smile up at me and say my name, apologize for being gone for so long, and swear to me she’ll never leave again. I dream that she’ll hold her first grandchild, that she’ll walk me down the aisle like we’ve always talked about her doing, that she’ll be here for the important moments that remain.

But it’s just a pipe dream. An impossibility as realistic as Calvin telling me this whole thing with his long-lost daughter is a joke.

As if she can sense my sadness, our daughter kicks me, and I can see the ripple of movement under my skin through my shirt. It’s as if she wants to remind me that I’m not alone. That we’re in this together. Us against the world.

I glance over at Cal, the man who was supposed to be different, who was supposed to show me the perfect example of a father for our daughter when I never had one to look up to. Suddenly, the sheen that once radiated off of him has dimmed.

Suddenly, he’s looking less like my perfect fiancé and more human than ever before.

The dark roads are blanketed in a thin layer of white snow, the dark lines our tires carve into the white being covered just as fast as they appear. I knew from watching the weather there would be light snow in Tennessee today, nothing really to worry about, but that doesn’t make the ascent up the mountain any less terrifying.

Seeming to sense my fear, Cal reaches across to my seat and takes my hand. I’m too nervous to even try to pull away from him.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got you. It’s just snow,” he says, with that charming smile on his lips like I’m being foolish. “It’s not slick.”

“I told you we should’ve come yesterday, before the snow set in.” I’ve been watching the weather all week, worrying about the storm coming in despite Cal’s insistence we would be fine.

“We couldn’t get the cabin early. I never heard back from the owners. Besides, I had class.”

“I know.” I huff a breath. “I know. I just…you know I hate driving in the snow.”

He squeezes my hand, his voice so calm and soothing it almost works to ease my fears. “We’re nearly there. Just close your eyes. Trust me.”

Trust. That word hits me as if he’s torn open a newly scabbing wound with his bare hands. It stings in a way it never has before.

I can’t do that. I can’t trust him, and I can’t trust this stupid mountain. I certainly can’t close my eyes. Somehow, that is so much worse. Instead, I grip the door handle with one hand, my feet firmly on the floor, and brace myself as we top the hill we were just climbing and round the curve.

“There she is.” His voice is soft and whimsical as the cabin comes into view. The home is quaint. A single floor with tall ceilings visible through the large windows that cover the entire front of the place. The rest is as you’d expect—amber logs and an oversized porch with a hot tub. It’s nestled in among the trees, with no other cabins in sight, delivering on the promise the owners made of total privacy.

I have to admit as we pull up, I seem to have forgotten all about the snowy roads and treacherous drive. All of my worries seem to be flickering out, replaced by a new sense of excitement. How long did we plan for this trip? How long did we study listings, obsessing over every detail until we found the right one?

I won’t let any of the rest of it worry me, simple as that. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Even as I say the words to myself, the promise feels flat and lifeless. It feels like a lie.